This section is intended to provide a background or context to the disclosure recited in the claims. The description herein may include concepts that could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the description and claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Juicing is a process of extracting juice and related nutrients from a food product (e.g., food stuffs such as fruits, vegetables, etc.). Many people gravitate towards juicing to reap potential health benefits of obtaining juice directly from fruits and vegetables. Currently, there are several types of juicers on the market, including masticating juicers and centrifugal juicers. Masticating juicers utilize a crushing and pressing operation to extract juice while centrifugal juicers utilize a high speed rotary motion (i.e., centrifugal force) to extract the juice from a product. Due to the crushing and pressing operation, masticating juicers tend to extract juice slower than centrifugal juicers.
While centrifugal juicers provide the advantage of quickly extracting the juice, centrifugal juicers can be confusing to assemble and difficult to clean due to the relatively high number of components that must typically be disassembled/reassembled for operating and cleaning the juicer. Currently, known centrifugal juicers generally have at least five separate parts. These centrifugal juicers typically require four steps to make the unit operational: place the juice/pulp catcher on the motor housing, attach the strainer basket, attach the top/spout section, and latch the safety mechanism. The relatively high number of components and steps, especially the particular order of those steps, make the current centrifugal juicers complicated and difficult to use for many users. Furthermore, the relatively high number of components makes cleaning and re-assembly overly complicated and cumbersome for many users. Yet another disadvantage of know commercial centrifugal juicers is that each interface between separate components creates a source of wear, misalignment, damage and represents a potential failure mode for the appliance. The greater number of separate components, the greater the number of potential failure modes.